Ms. Du Hongfang's Life at Risk Due to Torture in Prison; Her Husband Given Fourteen Year Sentence

1 October 2010

Ms. Du Hongfang, a Falun Gong practitioner in Jilin City, is being persecuted in Jilin Province Women's Prison. Her life is at risk. In 2008, Ms. Du was sentenced to eight years in prison. During more than one year of imprisonment, she has been severely persecuted by the communist regime's police officers and she is suffering greatly. Her husband, Mr. Guo Yunqing, was sentenced to 14 years in 2007. He is now in Gongzhuling Prison.

Ms. Du Hongfang, born in 1962, worked in the Metallurgical Construction Company Services Department in Jilin City. She and her husband, Mr. Guo, have been arrested, detained, sentenced, and subjected to forced labour by the Chinese communist regime several times. As a result of being imprisoned due to the persecution, there was no one to take care of their son. At the vulnerable age of eleven, their child was left alone. Because his parents were taken away, he had no home and was forced to become homeless. Because he had to support himself financially, he couldn't go to school like other kids his age and he has been subjected to all kinds of bullying and abuse.

The Brutal Persecution of Ms. Du Hongfang

On July 22nd, 1999, Ms. Du went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong for the first time. On her way there, she had to get through many interrogation and examination stops. On October 10th, 1999, she went to Beijing the second time to appeal, but was picked up and detained for 15 days.

After she came home, she set out for Beijing again. Because of the strict restrictions on traffic to prevent petitioners from going to Beijing to appeal, she had to go back to Jilin City. As soon as she returned home, she was arrested by police officers who had staked out her house, and she was taken to Jilin City's brainwashing centre. In January of 2000, she was detained for more than 10 days.

In February 2000, Ms. Du went to Beijing a fourth time to appeal. She was arrested at the Fushun City Train Station, sent back, and detained in Jilin City. In March, she was sentenced to one year of forced labour and transferred to Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp in Changchun City. She was subjected to brainwashing and a variety of torture, and her term was extended by ten months because she refused to be "transformed" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong].

On April 28th, 2000, Ms. Du was sent to the No. 4 Division of Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp. Because she continued to do the exercises, guard Yu handcuffed her to the head of the bed, shocked her with an electric baton, and attempted to force her to sign a guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong. She said, "I didn't do anything wrong. I won't sign anything." After the guards went out, two prisoners who were collaborating with the guards came in. They slapped her face and abused her. Later, Ms. Du started a hunger strike, and the guards used a metal device to unclench her teeth, inserted a rubber tube into her stomach, and force-fed her. Because of the strong stimulus of the saline solution being pumped into her stomach, she started to vomit.

On May 1st, 2000, the No. 4 Division ordered Falun Gong practitioners to watch brainwashing videos. Instead, all the practitioners stood up and did the exercises. In retaliation Yue Jun, head of the prison guards, shocked the practitioners with electric batons. On May 13th, all the practitioners in the No. 4 Division began a hunger strike and demanded that the persecution be stopped. Guards tied Ms. Du to a bed, binding her hands and feet with belts to the edges of the bed in a spread-eagle position. One prisoner restrained her head while the others started force-feeding her. Yue Jun shocked her neck and the rest of her body with an electric baton. Ms. Du convulsed and jerked upwards. After shocking her, they undid the belts and she fell off the bed and lost consciousness.

On November 1st, officer Zhang Guimei attempted to force Ms. Du to write a Repentance Statement. Ms. Du refused to write it, so Zhang Guimei tortured her by shocking her with an electric baton and then locked Ms. Du into a solitary compartment. As additional abuse, to make sure that Ms. Du could not move about, Zhang Guimei handcuffed her to the bars on the iron door of the compartment. Her hands soon became swollen, nearly doubling in size, and were covered with blisters. The compartment was infested with rats, and because she could not move her hands, they crawled all over her.

Because she refused to renounce her belief, her sentence was extended more than 300 days. On January 22nd, 2002, she was released from the forced labour camp.

On June 18th, 2002, Ms. Du Hongfang was illegally arrested again. She was subjected to savage beatings and torture. One method of torture the police officers used was to cover her head with a plastic bag for a long time before removing it. Then they viciously interrogated her and covered her head again. She almost passed out, but the police continued to repeatedly torture her like this way, and subjected her to this form of torture several other times.

Later, Ms. Du was again sentenced to forced labour for two years. On June 24th, 2002, she was detained in Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp. In July 2002, attempting to defame Falun Gong, the No. 4 Division played the Tiananmen Self-immolation video1 and forced the practitioners to watch it. Ms. Du said, "Falun Gong is good. The so-called self-immolation event is a hoax." The next day, guard Liu Zhiwei shocked her with an electric baton. Team head Zhang Guimei forced unidentified drugs down her throat and brutally hit her mouth.

Zhang Guimei ordered the collaborators2 and guards to brainwash Ms. Du. For several days and nights they didn't allow her to sleep. At the same time they forced her to watch slanderous videos and read defamatory books. Because Ms. Du continued to remain steadfast and refused to be moved no matter how viciously they persecuted her, they tortured her at the end of every month by shocking her with an electric baton.

On March 15th, 2007, Ms. Du Hongfang; her husband, Mr. Guo Yunqing; and their son, Mr. Guo Fengqing, were arrested by Du Xingze, the head of Chang Yi Domestic Security Division, and other police officers led by Du. Ms. Du and her son were kept in the Jilin City Detention Centre. She started a hunger strike and was later force-fed as a form of torture. Her 12-year-old son, Guo Fengqing, was also persecuted in the detention centre. Later, both of them were released.

However, after they were released, police officers continued to harass them. They harassed Ms. Du's family members, gave them the order for arrest, and demanded they hand Ms. Du over for an "investigation." In order to lessen the pressure on their relatives, Ms. Du and her son had to leave their hometown and become homeless.

When Ms. Du was arrested in July 2008, she was first detained in the Jilin City Detention Centre, and was later transferred to Heizuizi Women's Prison of Jilin City.

The guards at Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp stepped beyond the boundaries of all human decency, and it is alleged that they inserted electric batons into her vagina and shocked her.

The Brutal Persecution of Mr. Guo Yunqing

Mr. Guo Yunqing, Ms. Du Hongfang's husband, went to Beijing in October 1999 for the second time to appeal. On October 10th, he was arrested by officers from Beijing Sanjianfang Police Station and Police Department in Jilin City. He was detained at Jilin's liaison office in Beijing that night. The police officers searched him and sent him back to Jilin City the next day. More than 30 Falun Gong practitioners who had gone to Beijing to appeal were on the same train. As soon as they arrived at Jilin Station, more than 100 hundred armed police officers, who had been waiting there, handcuffed them and recorded them on video. The Jilin TV Station and Jiangcheng Daily co-operated with the police department to slander the practitioners' lawful appeal and broadcast defaming news on the local TV station and newspaper. Later Mr. Guo was detained at the Yanjiang Police Station in the Changyi District, Jilin City, for 15 days.

After he was released, Mr. Guo went to Beijing to appeal again. Because the petitioners were stopped when they tried to go to Beijing, he had to return home. He had barely returned home when he was arrested and taken to the No. 3 Detention Centre in Jilin City. During December 1999, he was detained at the Jilin No. 1 Detention Centre for more than four months. In March 2000, he was released.

On September 26th, 2000, Mr. Guo Yunqing went to Beijing for a fourth time to appeal. On October 1st, he displayed a five-meter long banner written with the words "Falun Gong Is Good" at Tian'anmen Square. Dozens of police officers immediately rushed over, surrounded him, and beat him as if they were crazy. One police officer even took out a long iron rod from his sleeve and struck his head very hard a dozen times. Mr. Guo was covered in blood, and he passed out then and there. Several officers carried him to the Beijing Qianmen Police Station. In order to escape any responsibility for his possible death, they put him in a secluded place that night while he lay in a coma and then they quickly left.

On October 28th, 2000, while Mr. Guo was explaining the truth about Falun Gong to people, he was arrested by officers from the Wenmiao Police Station. Du Xingze, the head of the security department of the police station in the Yichang District, ordered the officers to extort a confession from Mr. Guo by torturing him. They handcuffed his left hand to a heating pipe. Next, several officers grabbed his ankles and scraped them back and forth against the hot pipe for 20 minutes. He passed out from the tremendous pain. The officers also rubbed mustard into his eyes and nose. At midnight, he was put into the detention centre. In the detention centre, he was subjected to brainwashing and many kinds of physical torture. Because he refused to renounce his spiritual belief, on March 27th, 2000, he was transferred to the detention centre in Liaoyuan City for further brainwashing and torture. On October 26th, 2001, he was released.

After Mr. Guo got out of prison, Zhang Shoubin and other officers from Hadawan Police Station in the Yichang District attempted to arrest him several times but failed. So they went to Mr. Guo Yunqing's brother-in-law's house to harass his family members. They also followed and harassed Mr. Guo's twelve-year-old son. As a result, his son couldn't go to school nor could he go back home; he had to move from place to place.

On March 15th, 2007, Mr. Guo Yunqing, Ms. Du Hongfang, and their son, Mr. Guo Fengqing, were arrested by Du Xingze and other police officers. Mr. Guo was taken to the Yueshan Road Police Dog Base in Jilin City. At the base, Mr. Guo was tortured to the point of unconsciousness several times. Nevertheless, the police officers kept interrogating him. He was persecuted so severely that he was not able to walk. On July 10th, 2007, the Yichang District Court illegally sentenced him to 14 years, without informing any of his family members.

Note

1. The "Tiananmen Self-Immolation" an incident on Tiananmen Square in January 2001 whereby four people set themselves alight and the Chinese Communist claimed they were Falun Gong practitioners, yet there was video evidence to strongly disprove this claim.

2. "Collaborators": former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture. They are then made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.